1. Field
The present invention generally relates to a circuit board, image forming apparatus having the circuit board, and method of managing reuse information such as a number of times the circuit board is reused, and more specifically, a circuit board having a structure such that information regarding reuse of the board is easily obtained.
2. Background
With the increased awareness of environmental issues, when an image forming apparatus is no longer in use, a circuit board on which electronic circuits are mounted is usually taken out from the apparatus for reuse. For example, a central processing unit (CPU) mounted on a printed circuit board or a printer engine board may be incorporated into a new image forming apparatus.
On the other hand, if the board is reused without checking the lifetime of electronic components mounted on the board, a trouble such as fire may occur due to the electronic component that has exceeded its lifetime. To make selection of the electronic component that has exceeded its lifetime easy, a number of times the board is reused may be tracked, for example, by marking the board or attaching a seal to the board. While this technique allows a user to easily check a number of times the board is reused by eyesight, the marking or seal itself may contain wrong information by error. Further, once the marking is erased or the seal is separated from the board, the board itself is not able to check how many times the board has been reused such that it may encourage the illegitimate use of the board.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-137523 discloses a recycle system, which stores history information regarding each part on a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag attached to each part. The information stored in the REID tag is used to determine whether each part can be reused. Using this recycle system, the board may be able to check how many times each part on the board is reused based on information stored in the RFID tag. On the other hand, this does not allow the user to visually check whether the board is reused or how many times the board is reused.